Ars TechnicaDeath by neti pot: Why you shouldn’t use tap water to clean your sinuses
An alarming number of Americans think tap water is sterile—it's definitely not.
Tom@arstechnica I'm glad that a local giardia scare pre-dated the popularity of neti pots. Could've been catastrophic instead of my boss taking it as an excuse to flagrantly take frequent pulls out of a tequila bottle in his desk drawer
Tim Hergert
Jay
Geeden_Of_Arden@WhiteCatTamer @Cjust @arstechnica Apropos of nothing, The Two Ronnies had a bit about post offices. Barker holds up a misprinted stamp, blown up to 12x12. "Have you spotted the flaw? That's right. Too bloody big to go on the envelope."
EricG301@arstechnica I learned this on an episode of HOUSE 15 years ago.
Pete
How To Irrigate Your Nasal Passages
Asiny@pete @arstechnica hahahaha
@arstechnica I do an eye wash in the shower half the time, so I'm going to start keeping a bottle of sterile in the shower. Dang! the lede on that story! Got my attention
Eli Roberson (he/him)@rmflight my infrared thermometer gets the most use checking if 5' boiled tap water is the right temperature for a neti pot.
Dr. Robert M Flight@thatdnaguy 😆 nice. I just buy a gallon of distilled water from WalMart. But I also use my neti pot / nasal rinse bottle in the shower.
@rmflight you know I've thought about that. But the one time I tried I boiled it anyway to be sure. Then I gave up and just kept using tap water.
Owen Nelson@acdha I have not been boiling my tap water, so I guess I just got lucky for the past 8 years.
@acdha I do remember my doctor suggesting "it's probably okay because the water treatment in the area is 👌" and I guess that might be true, but there's nothing to say it'll stay that way.
Kellic Tiger 
I always boil my water for 5 minutes after it starts boiling, let it sit for 3 hours, boil it again, and then put it in a glass gallon jar.
enoch_exe_inc@arstechnica You mean to say that Americans drink water straight out of the tap without boiling it first?
😱
Adam RobertsonIt sort of depends on where you live. In our particular neck of the woods in California, the water is treated and comes from 5 different snow-fed reservoirs.
60 miles down the road, in the valley, I would not think of drinking that water...it is full of herbicides and fertilizer. You can smell it in the water when it comes out of the tap.
60 miles down the road, in the valley, I would not think of drinking that water...it is full of herbicides and fertilizer. You can smell it in the water when it comes out of the tap.
@adam I live in suburbia, so the water is well treated and drinkable straight from the tap. However, I still filter and boil it first, not just because it’s cleaner that way, but out of sheer habit and years of my parents insisting that this is the only way to get clean water.
Willow "Wolveric" Catkin@arstechnica Oh, ok... 😅 That had me worried for a moment there, as my family use steam inhalation to relieve congestion, but the fact boiling is explicitly noted as making the water *relatively* safe for ingestion, is a relief...
DanDan420@arstechnica The instructions on the thing tell you to boil the water first, but an alarming percentage of Americans are also against reading.
For whom the Taco Bell tolls@DanDan420 @arstechnica in bright red letters, no less
Bongolian@arstechnica The purpose of municipal water systems is to process water to remove sediment and to put sufficient disinfectant in the water so that by the time it gets to the most distant tap it is not likely to cause disease when swallowed (not nasal intubated by neti pot).
The stomach provides further disinfection that the sinus does not.
Chris WilliamsAn alarming number of Americans have never seen the insides of the pipes in an American home.
skry@arstechnica “In water sampling, Acanthamoeba and other biofilm-associated amebae have been detected in over 50 percent of US tap water samples.”
Unsafe: tap water in neti pots, as eyewash, as contact cleaner, and CPAP or other respiratory devices. Instead, use ‘…boiled, sterile, or distilled water.
"If tap water is used, it should be boiled for a minimum of 1 minute, or 3 minutes in elevations >1,980 meters, and cooled before use”.’
Alexia 
@arstechnica gotta love living in Germany for this scenario 
Katme: “ah, this will be the article that convinces me to finally stop using tap water in my neti pot, even though i know i shouldn’t”
article: “only about 3 to twelve cases each year… In all of the cases, the people had some sort of immune-compromising condition”
me: “… ok nevermind”
Dan Sugalski@kat @arstechnica I dunno, if "amoebas ate my brain!" isn't enough, maybe the "boiling water reduces its microplastics load by 80%" thing might be? Electric kettles are cheap and ridiculously handy. (Good for health, good for making tea, and awesome for prepping for making pasta if you don't already have an induction stove)
@wordshaper @arstechnica i have an electric kettle but the time and executive function involved is pretty much not happening, lol
the microplastics are just gonna have to get in line!
when i die of a sinus amoeba infestation, you can all say “i told you so”, but i’m really wondering who out there has the time and patience to boil water for this
i fully assume the salmonella is gonna get me first tbqh, i also love a barely-cooked egg. what can i say, i live dangerously
lampsofgold@kat can’t you just buy distilled water? Or use one of those UV purifier lights?
@lampsofgold distilled water - i guess, but then i have to microwave it? or something? like how do i easily warm it to the right temperature?
i could buy saline nasal rinses too (and sometimes do), but i find i like a stronger salt %... plus it's so wasteful buying extra water packed in plastic :/
i don't know about these UV purifier lights, what are those?
@kat I don't have a product I would recommend, but I know there are UV water sterilizers that homesteaders and the like use, I thought I remember seeing ones you could like submerge in a cup of water and kill anything living inside it that way, but I don't have a specific one in mind (especially because amazon I feel like would be rife with scams if I searched on this) kinda looks like this
mym@kat last time this went around i thought it said filtering works (amoeba are big), and i exclusively use filtered water because unfiltered water burns, so i checked. you're looking for NSF 53 or 58, and apparently filter pitchers don't always bother for certification but if there's a filter in your fridge or under your sink it probably is 53 (and both of mine are i just checked)
@mym thank you executive dysfunction committee for balancing out the “why don’t you just—“ crowd lol
anyway i no longer have a brita because they get moldy but this is potentially helpful. i also wonder how much variance there is in like, how filtered your locality’s tap water is?
@kat there's a lot of variance, like NYC had that whole scandal where it turned out they mostly didn't and the water wasn't kosher. i think what you'd actually want to test for if you were testing is chlorine content, idk what's high enough to kill amoebas
@kat (like reading between the lines in that article it sounds like most tap water is fine by default unless something went wrong and the chlorine is low)